The Sachsenring welcomed the Forward Racing Team as well as the entire MotoGP paddock with changing weather and a new asphalt for the ninth round of the 2017 Moto2 Championship. For Luca Marini, the unique track layout represents a tough challenge due to his ongoing injury sustained in Le Mans, while Lorenzo Baldassarri’s replacement rider Federico Fuligni made his first steps at the 3.671-kilometer-long circuit.

Marini, who sits in ninth place of the overall standings, did a brave start into the final round before the summer break to complete 34 laps over the course of FP1 and FP2. Still suffering from pain in his left shoulder the young Italian fought hard during the first session of the day, which took place in dry conditions and even improved by half a second during the following practice, yet without taking unnecessary risks.

On the other side of the Forward Racing Team garage, Fuligni, who jumped in place for injured Baldassarri, lapped the difficult German track for the first time ever and improved with every exit. The 22-year-old, who usual competes in the FIM CEV Moto2 European Championship with the Forward Racing’s Junior Team, did well to progress steadily and finally ended the day after 40 laps with a lot of data to analyze and improve further tomorrow.

With rain to be expected on the second day of action at the German GP, Marini and Fuligni will start their final preparations at 11.05 local time tomorrow, before they fight for the best positions on the starting grid for the ninth round of the season commences at 15.05 on Saturday afternoon.

Luca Marini – 23rd (1’26.653)“Overall, this first practice day wasn’t the best for me. I quite like the track, but this complex layout is really demanding, especially for my physical issue as it requires a great effort on the left side of the body, which increased my difficulties today. Therefore, I had to balance my power and tried to be cautious, principally with regard to the qualifying tomorrow. In any case, we are working well on the setup. We’ll see how it will be tomorrow, as always, we strive to give the best and collect as many data as possible on this technical track. Tomorrow the weather should be rainy, so let’s see what we can achieve.”

Federico Fuligni –32nd (1’28.650)“This is my first time here at the Sachsenring. I’ve never seen this track before and it’s very tricky, because there are many blind corners and if you catch a wrong line in the first part of the corner, you carry it all the way to the end and lose a lot of time. Overall, I feel really good with Lorenzo’s crew and try to improve step by step. I’m very sorry, because at the end I made a mistake on one of the bumps and I lost the front. For tomorrow, I’ll reset and try to improve again.”

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